Different Cages
by Zil
Summary: Normalverse Magneto and Maggot's brother have a disagreement while traveling in Africa. 11


Normalverse is a series of interconnected stand alones set in an AU where there are no mutations or 'powers'.

Feedback's great and to archive just let me know where.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters and am making no money from this.

Different Cages

"'What do you fear my lady?' 

'A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond beyond recall or desire.'"

-J.R.R. Tolkien

Click.

He lowers the camera and stares silently at the flat stone, not really knowing what to say.

"Lot."

The voice comes from behind him, and he turns to see the man who has brought him home after all these years. The man steps up to stand next to Lot, looking down to see what he was photographing. Still turned away, Lot can see Erik's lovely wife, Isabelle, as she drinks from her canteen, staying close to the jeep. He turns back to look at the grave, letting his camera rest on the strap around his neck. For a moment the two of them stand without sound or movement. One is much older, yet exuding a vitality despite the complete whiteness of his hair. His skin has tanned a deep brown. The other, younger, is more haggard, with skin that is naturally as brown as the dusty road.

"Do you know him? He has the same last name as you." Lot looks to the house off in the distance. It is close enough that the details of every broken window can be seen.

"Yes." He speaks with a crisp, precise accent that he has spent years honing in hopes of becoming a world-renowned photojournalist. "He was my brother." He draws a line in the dust in front of the marker with his toe.

Erik Lehnsherr watches, fascinated. So far the only personal detail his guide has let slip since he has met him is that he had grown up on the outskirts of Ottoshoop, which is why Erik insisted on driving out here. The scenery was lovely. Open plains, not as dry here as the nearby desert, so there was grass still growing in waving stalks. Lot had directed Erik to park in the back, near the makeshift graveyard. He has made no motion to go to the house, to tell his family of their arrival, but it appears they will be meeting Lot's family soon enough. An African woman emerges from the house and walks out to where the jeep is parked. She stops and says something to Isabelle in Afrikaans. Isabelle replies and soon the two are chatting like women do, the African woman shooting glances at the men behind the short wooden fence. Lot's gaze has returned to the small headstone.

"How did he die?" Erik asks as gently as he can, but still he sees the younger man flinch, remembering some old memory. The dates on the stone say the boy was twelve when he died.

"He had stomach cancer. It was eating him alive."

Erik starts to shake his head in sympathy, but Lot lets out a whistling breath and his shoulders slump.

"That is not how he died."

Erik's eyebrows raise in surprise. Lot is not looking at him. He will tell this story because he has to, not because some white man has hired him to lead him around Africa.

"I have always wanted to be a photographer." He states the fact as if he's moved on to another topic, but his eyes turn to the man beside him to see if he's following this line of reasoning. "Even when we were very poor I always had a camera. All I ever wanted, and got, for Christmas and birthdays was film. It was a very important thing to me, to take pictures." He is very solemn now. "The whole family knew this. One day, there was a civil war. My mother grabbed the three youngest boys and ran. She yelled for me to come, to bring Japheth. I needed to take pictures. I told Japheth to follow mother, and I didn't run. Neither did Japheth. I could not let my brother stand there and be run down by soldiers, so I grabbed his hand and we started running. The strap on my camera broke."

He reaches down and fingers the thick leather band around his neck, as if it is that same traitorous cord. "Japheth saw it and went back for it. I didn't have time to grab him again. The soldiers saw him holding the camera, my camera, and they killed him. There was nothing I could do. Later when they had left I went back and my camera was still there, in Japheth's hand. It was unharmed. They had killed my weak defenseless brother and not even bothered to break the device that had decided his fate. It was too ironic. I picked up my camera and headed off to Pretoria. I have not been home since." His face has become as blank as paper while he spoke, but bitterness and guilt flows in his voice.

"Lot," Erik rests his hand on the other man's shoulder; his voice rumbles with authority and a deep sense of power. "This is why I am here," he gestures to the small grave, "so that no more children need die in senseless wars."

Lot ponders this for a moment, then speaks. "You are right sir, it is a shame when children die, especially in senseless ways, but I must disagree with you in that war is senseless. The fighting that took my brother also brought my father out of the gold mines, it helped liberate a great many senseless injustices. So while I may never reconcile Japheth's death, I cannot condemn the war."

For a moment Erik's face takes on the countenance of a wrathful god, then he regains control and his feature smooth into disdainful ice. "You are wrong. War is senseless. There is no justification for it."

Lot shrugs, unaware of the depth of the anger brewing beneath the surface of the older man. "You may disagree with me, but I say you would be of more good finding treatments for cancer or AIDS."

"You know nothing. You do not understand." The words are hissed out through clenched teeth.

Lot's eyes widen as this rather jovial man whom he has come to trust over these few weeks they've been traveling together reaches out as if to grab and shake him. Or perhaps to push him down. Instead he clenches his hands into fists and stalks off toward the vehicle where his wife is still conversing with Lot's mother.

Lot watches him, and then turns back to his brother. A small noise, half sob half whisper makes its way from his throat. Ah, little Japheth, I know too well. Perhaps I do not understand, but then neither does he. He has never watched a younger brother grow weaker and weaker, a disease wasting him away. A disease is not like a war; you cannot take a picture of it and show the world, it can only be seen after it wins battle after battle. Disease is much more deadly then war; you cannot runaway from it. It does no good for anyone. War may not be good, but at least it has good intentions, and sometimes those intentions are the right ones. Sweet Japheth, you were a true hero. Cancer turned your body into a cage, trapping you within. But you never let that stop you. You went back for my camera, always a hero. Now you are no longer trapped, be free. Be free.

Lot feels another touch on his shoulder, and leans back into his mother's embrace. Then he steps forward again, and lifts his camera.

Click.


End file.
